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An anonymous reader writes "PRODIGAL (Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats Using Graph Analysis and Learning) is a recently uncovered U.S. government program created in partnership with the Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering, ostensibly to monitor IMs, texts, and emails on government networks, is feared to be turned on the U.S. population at large. From the article: 'Cherie Anderson runs a travel company in southern California, and she's convinced the federal government is reading her emails. But she's all right with that. "I assume it's part of the Patriot Act and I really don't mind," she says. "I figure I'm probably boring them to death."'"

I've assumed that the US government has been intercepting all our communications since they first had the technical ability.

I look at this the same way I might view a person who said to me "I've always assumed that an invisible Bigfoot watches me whenever I masturbate".

What should we expect from them today? I expect that as soon as they find a terrorism suspect, that they are able to review his/her communications retrospectively; and also those whom he/she had contact with and so on 3 plys deep. To do that, they need an archive of everyone's messages 100% of the time, because they can't know in advance whose they want to review in the future.

Also, they're flying interstellar UFO's out of area 51. And don't forget the Alien Autopsies.

C'mon man... REALLY? This is a tech-site. I know a lot of us are sci-fi fans, too, but primarily we're supposed to be tech geeks. How in the world could anyone who is familiar with modern technology convince themselves that the US government has the capabilities you've just described? Is it a case of paranoia overriding common sense, or is there some other problem?